WhatsApp Alleged to be Using Microphone While User Sleeps, Company Clarifies

A Twitter engineer posted a tweet alleging that WhatsApp had been trying to access the microphone on his phone, even while he was asleep. He complained about this potential privacy hazard supported by a screenshot, and Twitter CEO Elon Musk retweeted it too.

The user explained that the Meta-owned messaging app had been trying to get access to his Google Pixel 7 Pro's microphone at night, even when the app wasn't active. However, the company clarified later that this was an Android bug.

Whatsapp Allegedly Trying To Access Microphone in Background

The tweet posted by the director of engineering at Twitter, Foad Dabiri, showed that the messaging app had tried to use his microphone at least nine times, during the course of the night. This occurred between 4am and 7am local time, while the user claimed he was asleep, and wasn't interacting with the app or his phone.

He said, "WhatsApp has been using the microphone in the background, while I was asleep and since I woke up at 6AM (and that's just a part of the timeline!) What's going on?" in his tweet, alongside a screenshot.

Following uproar caused by the tweet, other users too came forward to claim that they'd spotted the green dot with a microphone symbol that showed active even after they'd closed the app. Some others checked out their 'Permissions History' from the 'Settings menu' on their own Android devices to find that the issue had been going on for a while.

Dabiri's tweet was supported by the CEO of Twitter, Elon Musk, who said "Trust Nothing, Not even nothing."

WhatsApp Clarified Issue to be an Android Bug

Following the uproar on Twitter, WhatsApp took to Twitter to dismiss all claims. It said that the issue was caused to an Android bug, and not anything at the app's end.

It elaborated in its statement on Twitter that, "Over the last 24 hours we've been in touch with a Twitter engineer who posted an issue with his Pixel phone and WhatsApp. We believe this is a bug on Android that mis-attributes information in their Privacy Dashboard and have asked Google to investigate and remediate."